My friends! To build a harmonious society is not a slogan, but rather it is our work-in-progress! There are two aspects of Huayen thoughts – intrinsic order and things: scriptures are intrinsic order, which are the guiding principles; and things are practices. How to harmonize intrinsic order with things and realize abstract ideals in the real world is religion! In intrinsic order, Huayen thoughts are exhaustive; in things, they are specific and concrete. Using exhaustive intrinsic order to guide us in performing specific matters to build a harmonious society is the core of Huayen thoughts. A society built upon such thoughts is called a flower repository world or a harmonious society, which simply is defined as a society most suited for human habitation. Our proposal of economy of spirituality is in response to building such harmonious society.
The first step in using economy of spirituality to build a harmonious society is to maintain economic productivity at zero exploitation of natural resources. Zero exploitation means less than 1%, with utilization rate between zero and 1%. This means no mechanical exploitation of mineral resources, minimal mining, and high utilization, with automobiles and home appliances thus becoming permanent goods, and allowing forests to regenerate more than two times over. In so doing, the inevitable trend is that manual labour and material goods become permanent, and thus first-class human resources will be invested in fostering spirituality, human nature, the humanities, human values, human integrity, including in-depth self-development and universally saving all living things. Then the value, significance, dignity of human existence will be respected, the proposition that man as the most intelligent creature will be true, and man’s destruction and pollution to natural resources and the Earth will stop immediately.
It is obvious to us that stopping economic growth is not the same as stopping economic activities and incomes. In fact, a basic condition of the ideal society is absolute economic abundance. Abundance here does not mean wanton plundering of natural resources but maintaining nature in continued and balanced growth so that we will live in inexhaustible abundance. For example, in using forest resources, we must have corresponding forest regenerative plans to ensure their continuity; as well, we should teach people to love our resources, and promote the production and use of permanent goods. What we want is “abundance based on love,” where there is continuity in the growth and use of natural resources and prolonged use of material goods, and not “affluence based on plunder” where there are mass production, mass consumption, massive wastages, and massive pollution.
Economic growth discussed in western theories is affluence based on plunder. We know that economic growth is fuelled by economic development, and thus exploitation of natural resource is an essential factor in economic growth. 500 years of human economic history has attested to the fact that economic and social construction and achievements are exploitation and utilization of natural resources. But this was the wrong way. Our conditions of our present society and the Earth are ample proof; we need not say more!
Further analyses reveal that prosperity and the decline of human civilization follow a certain pattern. The rise of various great civilizations, though related to the wisdom of the state founders, more importantly depended on the occupation of important resources such as forests and prairies that would support the livelihood of the common people. But the fall of great civilizations, though related to bad planning and choice of officials, depended more on deficiency of resources, and thus definitely related to popular sentiment betrayals. Historical records usually showed the former because the fact that historical conditions determined the objective environment was not fully understood. When we carefully examine nearly four millenniums of the development of Chinese civilization:
1. Xia and Shang dynasties in the Henan regions had exhausted resources for over one thousand years;
2. The Zhou Dynasty established in Shaanxi, and throughout the Han and Tang Dynasties for over thousand years, had exhausted resources on the Guanzhong plain in Shaanxi valley of the Wei River; and
3. Since the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the political center moved to the Kaifeng northern capital, and Liao’s northern capital became the center until today, for another millennium, sand storms had continued to wreak havoc.
In brief, the ancient people did not know that resources were external factors for survival or how to manage them for continuity, and so that resources were uncultivated, over-exploited, and spoiled, pushing our excellent landscape and civilization to the verge of collapse and disintegration. The recent rise of European and US civilization is a series of intense, across-the-board, planned plunders of global natural resources, not the kind of regional destruction we saw in ancient civilizations. Destruction to nature in ancient civilizations was due to ignorance, but our present destruction is planned, mechanical destruction. Does man need to ruin all global resources, human civilization, and happiness and prospect for the wrong values of the small number people of the G7 nations?
Therefore, after examining the ancient and modern histories of China and other countries and their histories of civilizations, we may utilize modern science and technologies, and information to make up for the ignorance of ancient times. An outstanding example is the endeavour of Beijing in preventing and controlling sand storms. We believe that instead of plunders we protect and breed nature resources, we will produce direct results in man's happiness, and return the Earth to a continued safe, stable, and balanced state!
Based on the above, in order to reformulate central social values using the Earth’s resources as the standard, so as to rectify wrong behavioural patterns of mass consumption and over-exploitation of natural resources that arise from economic growth, we set forth a concrete proposal regarding the Earth’s ecological balance, as detailed below:
1. Limit mass production: use natural resources conservatively and frugally to avoid highly efficient production and massive wastages. Effectively limit energy use in producing all industrial products so as to save natural resources.
2. Limit mass consumption: use all industrial products frugally, treat non-consumables as permanent goods, and use consumables frugally. Saving energy is about conserving energy for our descendants, not about profit. Treating all products as permanent goods will eliminate massive trash.
3. Limit the payment-by-instalment system: Apply payment-by-instalment only to capital goods, and not everyday consumer items. Therefore, payment-by-instalment and the use of credit cards on general consumer goods should be strictly restricted so as to enhance conservation of natural resources and avoid wastages.
4. All governments of countries and regions producing raw materials should levy a resource tax to restrict wastage and excessive exploitation of resources. All resources on Earth should be commonly owned by all mankind and not monopolized by entrepreneurs. This is to formulate social values that natural resources are common shared by all men.
5. People in under-developed nations should be encouraged to take leisure in activities such as afforestation, environmental protection, and banning illegal pollution, and not in entertainment that produces wastes. Moreover, celebration of births and grieving of deaths should take the form of afforestation or environmental protection religious activities.
字體：小 中 大
